Standing
by Sethoz
Summary: After recent events Jack thinks back on his life and his friendship with a certain "Spacemonkey" - and why he is always the one left standing. *Fin*


Disclaimer: At first this started out as just a post-Meridian story but it evolved into something much more than that. I don't own Stargate or anything bar the order of words in this story. Please read and review.  
  
Written by: Sethoz.  
  
Spoilers: Meridian, Fire and Water, Stargate the movie, Children of the Gods, Need, Shades of Gray. (Possibly more that I missed.)  
~Standing~  
I never expected to do this again. Not for him.  
  
No, that's a lie. I never WANTED to do this again. Yet I always seem too - it always seems to be me. I've been in this position may times, too many times. The last time it hurt this much it was about him as well. We all thought he was dead, gone, burnt. Lost in fire. Screaming my name just before he... was gone. He wasn't really dead though - it was just some alien messing with our heads. I wish it was that simple now. That it was just some alien, so we could find him and save him. It's not that simple. This time he's really... gone. As in not coming back.  
  
Oh I know he's not really dead. His body is dead but not his soul. Does that sound religious? Some sort of 'His soul is with Jesus now'? That's not what I meant. He ascended, became a higher being. So why does it hurt?  
  
He's not really dead. It just feels like he is. We know he's out there somewhere doing... something, yet I've been asked to write his eulogy. Again. Daniel's eulogy. Saying that, saying 'Daniel's eulogy' brought it home to me in a way it never had before.  
  
Daniel. Is. Gone.   
  
I couldn't believe it when they asked me to write his eulogy. I wanted to scream and hit them yelling 'He's not dead! He's just... gone.' Instead I nodded and walked off to find a place to think and get drunk. At least that was the plan. To go somewhere where I could forget... if only for a little while. I should have been able to stop it but I didn't, couldn't. Now I can't forgive myself. And it hurts.  
  
When I lost Charlie it hurt. Hurt more than I ever thought possible. So I closed my heart to everything and just became the army. Following orders, doing what I was told, anything to keep my heart locked away. Until the Stargate project. Until I first set eyes on a long haired, four eyes by the name of Dr. Daniel Jackson. He was just a kid. An irritating geek true but really he was just a kid. An amazing kid who unlocked the Stargate, a kid who was the most brave person I ever met.   
  
He was still a geek though.  
  
When I went through the gate for the first time I knew it was going to most likely be my last mission ever. I was already dead - inside anyway, so it was me who was supposed to die. I only knew him for a few days but Daniel managed to get under my skin in a way no one had after Charlie's death. The stupid kid who died for me. He died for me - me who wanted to die. If I close me eyes and think back to that day I can still see the look in his eyes just before the blast hit him, the look of peace as he sacrificed himself, still hear the hiss as the blast hit him, still smell the burnt flesh as he fell backwards. Dead.   
  
I couldn't understand it. Daniel was the only one who could get us home yet he leapt in front of me, he died for me. I didn't even like him. He knew I didn't like him, but that didn't stop him. He just didn't think. He was always like that, always willing to put his life before others - for the simple fact he thought other's were more important than him.  
  
Words can't describe what I felt when I saw him walk towards me. Alive. I didn't know how at the time, all I knew was that he was live. He was holding a staff weapon, pointed right at us. And I knew we were going to die... the kid had guts though. At the last possible moment he spun round and fired the staff at all the armed jaffa behind him, saving my butt again. I don't think I ever thanked him for it. We killed Ra, freed the people of Abydos and that was that. Daniel stayed with his wife and we all went home. Telling the world that Daniel was dead.  
  
We couldn't leave him alone though could we? Just over a year later we went back and Daniel lost his wife, but I found my friend. It was then that I told him more about Charlie. Somehow Daniel had managed to get the whole story from me on that first mission - about Charlie finding the gun, about the funeral, about my death wish. A year later he got to hear the sequel. Sara left me, because she could forgive me, but she could never forget. Me? I could never forgive myself... but sometimes I could forget. Sometimes. I said those very words to Daniel before taking a slug of some form of alcohol. Never did I dream I would be faced with those words again only this time Daniel wouldn't be there to help me, this time he was the reason I was saying them.   
  
It was Daniel who pulled me out of the dark hole I was living in back then. Hell the man had lost his wife and he was trying to make me feel better? Typical Danny. It was around about that time that I stopped thinking of him as a kid, instead a man.   
  
He was still naive at times though, always wanted to believe the best of people. This one time we were captured and sent to work in the mines. Only thing was, Daniel had saved the life of there princess. There should have been some gratitude for that. But no, Daniel saves her life and in return she gets him hooked on the sarcophagus. Lovely that.  
  
Daniel believed in me. So I believed in him. One of the most horrible memories I have of Daniel is that time in the storeroom where he had a gun pointed at me. My best friend was an addict, his body was shutting down and it wasn't his fault. He was desperate in that storeroom. Maybe he would have shot me, who knows. The fact is he didn't. There was enough of the man I knew left. He rebuilt himself, still managing to retain that childlike innocence he had.   
  
The worst thing he ever said to me by a long shot was telling me to leave him to die. We had got aboard a Gou'ald mother ship to try and stop them invading earth. The Gou'ald was called Klorel. The host... someone else I failed. Daniel wanted me to fail him.  
  
"I'll be dead anyway. Just get out of here!"  
  
He wanted me to leave him. Just like that. Leave him bleeding. I did. I left my best friend to die alone on an enemy ship. Yet that didn't kill him, it was like nothing could kill him.  
  
Even when Sha're had died there was still the spark left in him. Subdued and hidden true, but the fire was there.  
  
He was more than a geek.   
  
When Charlie died it was Daniel who pulled me out of the black pit I was living in. Who would pull me out this time? Would anyone even want too? Why was is it the old were left while the young depart.  
  
Why am I always left standing?   
  
I think Daniel felt guilty. The guy was dying and he felt guilty about it. Typical Daniel. He's gone and all I have is booze.  
  
Why?  
  
//And you didn't think you could trust us to help?\\ Daniel's voice, a memory came floating into my head. Why that thought?  
  
//Trust us to help?\\ Came Daniel's voice again. And I smiled because there is still a 'us'. There's Sam and Teal'C, my team mates, my friends. There was always the thought of Daniel as well, when ever I needed him.  
  
He was much more than a geek.  
  
He was and he is my best friend... where ever he is at the moment.  
~The End~  
There you have it - please read and review! 


End file.
